Amanda Lindhout
Overview: Amanda Lindhout is a Canadian humanitarian and journalist. In 2008, she, along with fellow traveling companion Nigel Brennan and their entourage were kidnapped by Islamic insurgents in Somalia while visiting. After being released 15 months later, Lindhout started a philanthropic career, and founded the Global Enrichment foundation, an humanitarian organization dedicated to empowering women in war-ridden and developing countries. In 2013, she along with fellow journalist Sara Corbett released "A House In The Sky: A Memoir." This memoir recounts her early life, travels as a traveler, career as a journalist, and her hostage experience. Biography: Childhood: As a child, Lindhout witnessed her parents divorce, which affected her greatly. After the divorce, she went on to live with her two siblings and their mother in Sylvan Lake, Alberta. She resumed a normal childhood there, being happy while spending time with her siblings. Her mother soon starting dating a man with First Nations heritage name Russell. Lindhout was happy for her mother, and liked Russell, but that all soon faded away, Her mother and Russell soon started to argue about things that didn't even matter. These fights often scared Amanda, which led her to start hiding in her room. Eventually, Amanda couldn't take it anymore, and she tried to find another way to block out the constant noise. She soon became interested in National Geographic articles, and bought many of them over the years. Having been fascinated by these articles, she was soon inspired to travel the world. Young Adult Years: Amanda soon moved to Calgary at the age of 19, where she started to work as a cocktail waitress to make some money. The real reason behind this was to fund her trips to foreign countries all around the world. She started flying to different countries soon enough, and eventually she met Nigel Brennan, who would soon become an important part of her life over the course of fifteen months. Nine years after she began her travels, Lindhout and Brennan journeyed to Somalia, where they hoped to publish an article. They were on their way to meeting up with some of their crew, but they were ambushed by Somalian insurgents and held for ransom. The insurgents constantly threatened the two of them, and wished to see them suffer for what their people had done. Due to the fact that they weren't Muslims, they were treated differently, and were set to be killed. Lindhout came up with the idea that if she and Brennan both converted to Islam, their captors would have no choice but to let them live. It took a lot of convincing, but Brennan eventually agreed to this. Her plan worked, and they were allowed to live. However, they were not free, and their captors abused them, Amanda even more so because she was a woman. In countries like those, women are not really all that respected. Over the course of 15 months, Lindhout was continously abused, and even raped by one of her captors. In spite of this, she and Brennan tried to escape, but failed. After the failed escape, the insurgents were more vicious to Amanda. For a month, they didn't let her even stand up. She was forced to lie down on the floor. Even worse, they tied up all of her limbs, and made her into a human pretzel. But the insurgents were not finished with her yet. They gagged her with an old sock, and made somewhat of a noose, so that if she was about to sag downwards, she would instead be gagged, and force to rise up again. After 15 months, however, she and Brennan were freed after both their families had paid $1,000,000 for each of them. Lindhout slowly fell back into life. However, the scars of her experience are still there. Today, Lindhout is a different person, having started the Global Enrichment Foundation, and is currently leading a philanthropic career. Opinion on Amanda in the Memoir: In the memoir, Amanda was a strong and resilient character. However, I think she recounted too many irrlevant things during the story. For example, during her hostage experience, she always talked about her food, or her clothes, for that matter. It's understandable, of course, as she was under a lot of stress and trauma while being held captive. It also may be that while she wrote this memoir, she wanted to sound kind of like a fictional story, which lead her to write more about all these little details.caca pipihahahahahahahah razor sharp :0000000)))))